The Arabian Nights Entertainments - online book

Children's Classic Fairy Tales From The East, Edited By Andrew Lang

when the envious man was brought before the Sultan, the monarch said to him, ' My friend, I am delighted to see you again.' Then turning to an officer, he added, ' Give him a thousand pieces of gold out of my treasury, and twenty waggon-loads of merchandise out of my private stores, and let an escort of soldiers accompany him home.' He then took leave of the envious man, and went on his way.

Now when I had ended my story, I proceeded to show the genius how to apply it to himself. ' O genius,' I said, ' you see that this Sultan was not content with merely forgiving the envious man for the attempt on his life; he heaped rewards and riches upon him.'

But the genius had made up his mind, and could not be softened. ' Do not imagine that you are going to escape so easity,' he said. ' All I can do is to give you bare life; you will have to learn what happens to people who interfere with me.'

As he spoke he seized me violently by the arm; the roof of the palace opened to make way for us, and we mounted up so high into the air that the earth looked like a little cloud. Then, as before, he came down with the swiftness of lightning, and we touched the ground on a mountain top.

Then he stooped and gathered a handful of earth, and murmured some words over it, after which he threw the earth in my face, saying as he did so, ' Quit the form of a man, and assume that of a monkey.' This done, he vanished, and I was in the likeness of an ape, and in a country I had never seen before.

However there was no use in stopping where I was, so I came down the mountain and found myself in a flat plain which was bounded by the sea. I travelled towards it, and was pleased to see a vessel moored about half a mile from shore. There were no waves, so I broke off the branch of a tree, and dragging it down to the water's edge, sat across it, while, using two sticks for oars, I rowed myself towards the ship.